John Linton ...and I wish someone had come up with a better description of this service before constant usage has made it impossible to change.
After a little over three months of offering ADSL2 services without the need to rent a telephone line and also, therefore, either using VoIP or a mobile when the user wants to make a phone call it appears there is a reasonable demand for this service among the more technically confident users of broadband services but there remains a great deal of hesitation among the vast majority of the Australian marketplaces - at least those that consider Exetel.
Personally, I still see data over 3/4G as the only real solution for the increasingly 'merged' needs of the majority of residential end users of communications services but, at least as far as Exetel is concerned, that is something that we will not be able to offer for some time - earliest seems to be late calendar 2008.
We will have a meeting with Optus next week to determine whether we continue to sell their ADSL2 services after our initial contract expires mid this year and that meeting will determine whether or not we make more effort in the ADSL2 part of the market and, more importantly, just how we can make ADSL2 minus the need for an active telephone line more appealing to more end users.
If we listened to our provisioning and support people we would not continue to offer ADSL2 services as their cost of support is far too high and as Exetel bases its broadband oferings on a margin of between $1.50 and $2.00 a month the Optus ADSL2 services have lost us money ever since we put the service up on our web site in May 2006. To date I think our losses on offering that service are approaching $A1 million with no real sign of reaching a break even let alone making a profit.
Not the best decision I ever made (I seem to be saying that a lot more often these days - I wonder whether my decision making has got so much worse or my ability to accept my own failings has become so much more mature?) But then someone very close to me would say that it's difficult to construct a sentence that includes both 'mature' and John Linton'.
In terms of ADSL2 with no active telephone line there appears to be an opportunity to make some sort of headway with a 'bundled' ADSL2/Mobile/VoIP service at around $A50.00 a month as it would be cheaper than the lowest cost 'give away' current ADSL plans that typically end up costing $A50 a month including the telephone line rental.
I was given some ADSL2 costs on Friday by a 'new' provider that provide much better margins than the current Optus (or the late lamented AAPT) costs and I'm curious to see their network details and will visit them next week to have an in depth look at how they have provisioned and now manage their network.
If what they say is true - then.......who knows.......could be a sensible thing to do.
So I'm coming to the view that a 'comms in a box' service for the technically hesitant with some sort of 16 x 7 support and a whole lot better customer 'tools' might be the way to go with an ADSL1 service available anywhere in Australia and an ADSL2 service available in the major user areas in the main capital cities and regional centres. The 'bundled' ADSL1 plans are already on the web site and it may be possible to offer an ADSL2 based plan by the end of March along the lines of:
ADSL2 speeds $50.00 a month
1 gb of download (4 gb for $55.00)
Additional downloads at $2.00 per gb
Must have VoIP at $5.00 per month (includes 50 national and local calls)
Must have mobile at $5.00 a month (includes $5.00 of calls at 30 cents per minute/no flagfall)
Optional, pre-configured router/modem/ATA $100.00 16 x 7 telephone support
(The Exetel fax via email service overcomes the need for those people who still have faxes (more than I used to think) to keep their line for the occasional fax.) I
t would be nice to just have four plans (2 ADSL1 and 2 ADSL2) and only one supplier to the customer last mile circuits with network visibility so that the issues of carrier back haul that have been an issue for us over the past four years could one day be a thing of the past.
It's a pleasant Sunday morning and it's nice to dream sometime.